Advice From Your Advocates
Advice From Your Advocates
Renewed Purpose: Finding Meaning After a Life-Altering Health Crisis
In this enlightening conversation, Attorney Bob Mannor interviews Dr. Michael Hession, a cardiologist who shares his profound near-death experience and the subsequent transformation in his life and practice. Dr. Hession discusses the importance of acknowledging and accepting one's health challenges, the impact of PTSD in medical contexts, and how his experience has made him a more empathetic physician. He emphasizes the need for proactive health management and the significance of family support during medical crises. The discussion culminates in Dr. Hession's insights on the importance of mindfulness and the philosophy of 'Acknowledge, Accept, Adapt' as a framework for dealing with life's challenges.
Episode highlights:
• Discusses Dr. Hession's background as a cardiologist
• Describes his near-death experience and its impact on his life
• Highlights the importance of family presence in healthcare
• Explores the concept of PTSD in patients experiencing critical health issues
• Introduces the philosophy of “Acknowledge, Accept, Adapt” for coping with illness
• Emphasizes the significance of self-advocacy in health management
Check out Dr. Hession's book, *Physician Heal Thyself, Nearly Dead: The Journey Back to Health* and his website at acknowledgeacceptadapt.com.
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You're listening to Advice from your Advocates, a show where we provide elder law advice to professionals who work with the elderly and their families. I'm really excited about our guest today. We've got Michael Heschen, a cardiologist, and Michael, welcome and thanks for joining us. Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Michael J. Hession, MD:Sure. Thank you for having me today. Attorney mentor. So my name is Michael Heschen. I'm a practicing cardiologist. I'm the medical director of Medistrational Brigham Harbor in the south shore of Boston. I went to Boston College and then to Dartmouth Medical School. I've been in practice since 1985. Life for me went quite well until the week of Christmas in 2013, when I developed what was a and then it relentlessly went downhill and resulted in a near-death experience and a prolonged hospitalization and an even longer recovery. It led to a book that I wrote, physician Heal Thyself Nearly Dead in the Journey Back to Health, and it got me back to work and doing what I love best.
Attorney Bob Mannor:I want to repeat the name of that book, because it's a really interesting name Physician Heal, Thyself Nearly Dead and the Journey Back to Health. So tell us about that experience that inspired the book.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I was working as I normally do, about 60 hours a week and getting ready for the holidays, and I developed a cough. The week before Christmas got worse. I was seeing my primary care doctor, started on some antibiotics, got worse. X-ray showed pneumonia but my vital signs were fine. I changed up my medications but things continued to relentlessly go downhill and on New Year's Eve, 2013, I woke unable to breathe and my wife had already been woken by my labor of breathing, called 911.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I was brought to the hospital and in the emergency room it was pretty obvious to everybody there that I was in deep trouble. Pneumonia had spread to both lungs. I had what's called acute respiratory distress syndrome, I think. Recently it's been referred to as cytokine storm. I was hypotensive, in shock.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I was intubated, started on life support and things didn't get better and it was recommended I'd be transferred into a Boston teaching hospital to be started on ECMO, which is extracorporeal oxidation, which is essentially they take your blood and pump it through an artificial lung and put it back into your body because your own lung's not working. So I was sent to the Brigham and I was intubated on life support for about 11 days. It was really touch and go for a while there. So when you're intubated, it's a very uncomfortable procedure, so you're given heavy sedatives, muscle relaxers and painkillers to allow you to tolerate what would be otherwise intolerable. I was aware I mean, I could hear people talking around me and, being a physician, I knew what the implications of what the discussion was about my health, that it was not likely that I was going to survive. It was terrible, and being intubated was probably the worst experience I went through, one of those experiences.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I didn't come back the way I did with the previous experiences and I felt myself drifting off and my body becoming cold, and I could hear crying, mournful crying, and I couldn't really tell where it was coming from.
Michael J. Hession, MD:And at some point I was able to see it was my family crying and I didn't understand what that meant. And then the crying disappeared and it was at that point that I realized the crying was from me, that I must be dead, and I don't know how long I drifted. There was really no sound, it was just cold, black. Then I became aware of a white light that I was being drawn towards. I got closer. It was the appearance of a woman in white, shimmering robes and she said Michael, it is not your time, you must go back. I didn't really know what that meant. The next thing I knew, I heard my wife speaking into my ear telling me it was good news that the doctor said I was beginning to respond to treatment. That image has never really left me. I think that was something that I couldn't explain, but it was real.
Attorney Bob Mannor:I've got a lot of questions about what you were just going through, but the most important question is how has that affected you? Moving on, so you know, you described a life that many of us follow, where we work very hard, that we're working perhaps too many hours, that we have that drive and ambition, and how has this affected your life since that experience? Excellent question.
Michael J. Hession, MD:Well, it changed me profoundly. I became much more aware of how precious and how fleeting that life is and that I probably was spending more time working than spending with my family and doing things for my own self-improvement. So it led to, over time, rebalancing the work life and it also surprisingly and this is really hard to explain but I didn't fear death. I think death was kind of a scary thing for everybody. For me it was, but after this I didn't fear death. I think death was kind of a scary thing for everybody. For me it was, but after this I didn't fear death.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I also became more empathetic in how I listened to my patients. The difference between empathy and sympathy is really quite a lot, and I was able to find that I was listening to my patients more empathetically than sympathetically. And as part of my rehabilitation I learned meditation, specifically mindfulness meditation. That really allowed me to be totally focused on my patient at that time, not to be distracted by other phone calls or beeps or other things, and if other things came up, I just noted them and they went off to the side, but I was able to 100% focus on what the issues were that my patient was concerned about. So I think you know, surprisingly, the whole experience made me a better person, a better physician, a better husband, a better parent and a better person.
Attorney Bob Mannor:I'm curious about how well. First of all, I'm curious about your experience as a patient, being on the other side of it and your experience and how that might have affected you a bit. But really I'd like to learn more about how you felt going through that healthcare system, how you felt as a patient and, if that you know what. Was there anything that was sort of eye-opening or that you experienced it in a different way because you're now a patient instead of the doctor?
Michael J. Hession, MD:Absolutely. Another great question. As I said, I was aware even though I was intubated, unresponsive, unable to communicate, I could hear other people talking. Two things that were really important. One was my family was with me every day. They were allowed to stay with me 24 hours a day. Their presence was sanity saving. They spoke to me every day, held my hand and comforted me.
Michael J. Hession, MD:When I first was in training in medical school and in residency, and first as a physician, families weren't really encouraged to be in the ICUs with their loved ones. Time was limited to 15 minutes and only certain hours of the day. Over time, patient-centered medical care became more of a concept and the realization that having family members present was important. But I have to say I never realized how important it was until I was on the other side of the bed. The other thing that was eye-opening is how few of the healthcare providers took time to talk to me. I think when you're intubated, unresponsive, unable to communicate, it's very easy to think that they can't hear or they're unaware of what's going on.
Michael J. Hession, MD:But I have to say I was quite amazed at how aware I was and how grateful I was when anybody took the time to speak to me.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I had one nurse. Every time she came on she would introduce herself, tell me what day it was, the time it was, what was going to be happening to me, and it was just so reassuring I can't emphasize how much that meant to me. In the morning, the phlebotomist come by early, like 5 am, to draw your blood so it's ready for when the staff round on you and they would always talk to me and say you're going to emit all your blood, you're going to feel a little pinch, and then they would say I'm done and then they would leave. They're like ninjas coming in the night and were there for only a few minutes and they left. Those interactions, really treating me as a sentient human being were profound and I think some of the feedback that I've gotten on people who've read the book, particularly healthcare providers. They were actually amazed and shocked and chagrined at how much people could hear and understand, how much awareness there was, and I think it's led to many of them changing how they care for patients.
Attorney Bob Mannor:Very interesting. So many years ago, when I was about 40, I had a cardiac event and I was in the ER and my experience was very interesting. As you know, you as a doctor, probably had a better understanding and have understood what was going on around you a little bit better. For me, even though I interact with the medical field quite a bit, I'm not a doctor and if you ever want to see an ER staff move fast, go in as a 40-year-old with a cardiac event, because everybody was running around and just circling and everybody was talking and it just was so much activity. It was very overwhelming and I feel like that.
Attorney Bob Mannor:Well, that was my particular experience. I eventually got an ablation and everything's fine, but the issue was that it was just so overwhelming as a patient and I'm interacting and I'm advocating for my clients and advocating for their health care and it was just so much of a unique experience being the patient and how much the activity that was going around, how when I moved from the ER to a hospital room, everybody coming in, everybody kind of telling me what was going on, and on one hand, I can understand what you're saying is that interaction was positive. For me it was overwhelming because I had probably 30 different people describe my symptoms to me over a span of about two hours and that was a lot to take in from that kind of experience. Having been as a cardiologist, I'm sure that you're kind of used to the flow of the hospital and the energy of the hospital, but for someone that's not experiencing that that can be overwhelming too, I think.
Michael J. Hession, MD:Absolutely. It was overwhelming for me and I realized in retrospect how overwhelming it must have been for many of my patients and it gave me a deeper understanding of what they went through and I think, as I said before, it made me much more empathetic in understanding what they've been through and helping them discuss the whole experience. I talk in the book about critical medical illness and PTSD. I think you know post-traumatic stress disorder is something that wasn't even a concept when I was in medical school. It really wasn't until well after the Vietnam War that you know there are the whole concept of PTSD became a topic that people really believed was a true phenomenon. I think you know in World War II and World War I it was called battle fatigue, shell shock, and they didn't know how to treat it. It was only after Vietnam that they began to develop some insights into PTSD and I think it's still ongoing.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I think still people are trying to understand PTSD and how to treat it.
Michael J. Hession, MD:It's less understood that PTSD is something that can start to feel symptoms of trouble sleeping, anger, nightmares, that they're probably part of PTSD, and I think when people can name something that they're feeling, it goes a long way to helping to solve the problem.
Michael J. Hession, MD:But I think there are ways now that are recognized that help people deal with PTSD. But as a patient, if you don't know what you're feeling, you really don't know what to do and it can lead to what's happened over the years with people who've come back from wars or people who've suffered violence, these symptoms and they self-medicate with alcohol or opioids and it leads to a lot of bad behavior and then it becomes a whole different issue, much more difficult to treat, because now you're dealing with the downstream consequences of unrecognized PTSD. But I think anybody who suffered critical medical illness or even any severe medical illness they need to be counseled that they begin to have these feelings of you know, experience trouble sleeping, nightmares or other signs and symptoms of PTSD. They need to speak to their physicians about it and get help to deal with it. I think when it's caught early, like anything, it's a lot more treatable than if it's caught late and some of the red flag behaviors of self-medication become a bigger issue.
Attorney Bob Mannor:You know that's very interesting and you brought up the World War II and you know we're. You know we have fewer and fewer of our World War II veterans with us anymore, but over the years that is something that we've experienced where World War II veterans in particular and of course this is true for any veteran, but World War II veterans in particular were often didn't seek out the help and didn't, and especially when there's benefits and things like that to the Veterans Administration, they didn't seek. That is something that I think probably a lot of people overlook, and so you had mentioned. The first step is to discuss it with your doctor, perhaps get some counseling.
Michael J. Hession, MD:What are some of the triggers that might trigger PTSD for somebody that experienced PTSD from a medical event, and then what are the other things that they should be doing to address that Well, I think, again, it's important to instruct patients and their families that if the symptoms of PTSD and there's a long, long list of them start to become an issue trouble sleeping, anxiety, anger, nightmares that it's not of their mind, it's not them, it's really a consequence of what they went through it's not unexpected to name it, to normalize it and then to get help. I think you know, for many years I had seen patients who had cardiac arrests, heart attacks, have emergency bypass surgery and come back and they're healing and they're having a lot of trouble with nightmares and trouble sleeping and the primary care doctors would just give them benzodiazepine or something to help them to sleep and it really wasn't dealing with the root cause because really there wasn't an awareness of this. There still isn't, and that was one of the big goals that I was hoping to make is to really increase the awareness that this can happen to not only the patients but the family members of patients who've been through critical medical illness, as well as the caregivers. I mean it's been estimated that close to 20% of the healthcare providers during the pandemic have dropped out of their fields because of the trauma that they experienced.
Michael J. Hession, MD:It's very real, but I think you know there isn't as global an awareness of PTSD from something like illness out there as there is, say, with school shootings or violence or war, but it's very real and I think that it's very important for people to realize that these symptoms begin to show up, that it's not in their head, it's not a weakness, it's something that's very real, it's something that's very treatable and I think you know my goal really during these podcasts and in my public speaking and writing the book is to just really to normalize this whole concept and to get people comfortable with talking about it and getting the treatment.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I think being a tough guy, being macho or this is all in your head, you can get over it, snap out of it. That's not the way to deal with it. I think it really needs to be normalized and to be acknowledged and to be treated, and I think the American College of Family Medicine just adopted a policy advising all their physicians that anybody who's committed to see them following a hospitalization for critical medical illness should be screened for signs and symptoms of PTSD. So I think, incrementally there's increasing awareness of this, but it's not top of mind the way it is with the school shooting from combat veterans, but it's very, very real.
Attorney Bob Mannor:I'm curious about. With your experience. It sounds like there was a lot of recovery that was necessary. How long did it take you to go back to work, and did you actually think about not going back to work after that?
Michael J. Hession, MD:Yes, excellent question. Things were not a straight line. As I said, after 11 plus days of being on life support, I was taken off and they put on a mask, called an iPad mask, which was paired onto my chin and then very sturdy straps held it in place just to force oxygen into my lungs, which was severely damaged. And, um, you know, one night I was having trouble breathing and my son was there and, uh, they'd given me a nurse call button to push if I needed help. But I couldn't move, I couldn't use the button, my hands were useless, um, I couldn't activate the call button, but my son was there. He saw that I was in distress and he called the nurse and the physiatrist came and they treated me and got me through it and after a few more days, they were able to switch me to just oxygen for the nose and I was sent to rehabilitation with oxygen.
Michael J. Hession, MD:And at nighttime what would happen is I couldn't move, so I was placed on my back and at nighttime, you know, my oxygen level was a drop and the team would rush in turn on the lights to be certain I was breathing. This would happen every night, to the point that I just I was afraid to sleep. I was afraid I was going to stop breathing and it took a long time to really get to the point where I could not be afraid to sleep. I was in inpatient rehabilitation for six weeks and it was about 15 months or longer before I was able to go back to seeing patients. I started slowly. I wasn't really physically strong enough to see patients in the hospital, so I had to give up going to the hospital. My practice is confined to seeing patients in the office. But little by little I gained strength and built myself up to working five days a week. Things were going well until I had my second near-death experience days a week.
Michael J. Hession, MD:Things were going well until I had my second near-death experience, I had developed over the years diverticulosis which I didn't even know I had. I had one episode of diverticulitis in the hospital and a second episode of diverticulitis and that resulted in an abscess.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I had to have IV antibiotics for six weeks and then elective surgery or urgent surgery to remove the abscess. Everything seemed to go well until the anastomosis broke down. Part of the treatment for the ARDS and the cytokine storm was in high-dose steroids, which are the only medicine that is shown to help and there's no real treatment for it, except supportive. But steroids impair healing and predispose you to infection. I woke up in pain and I said to my wife you need to take me to the hospital and on the way there I began to lose consciousness and by the time I got to the hospital I was in shock and I remember the intern, the resident, who was looking at me. He said is your blood pressure always this low? I said no and that was the last thing I remember.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I woke up I think it was the next day and I had an abdominal catastrophe. My anastomosis had broken down, my belly was filled with pus and everything else and I had to wash it out. I had to have an ileostomy and that was a low point for me. Everything that I've been doing getting stronger, doing physical therapy, going to patient-to-patient physical therapy, getting back to work. Everything went back to square one and not as long a recovery from this, but I did manage to build myself back up and was able to have ileostomy reversed. I had to rebuild myself for physical therapy and start back again slowly to work, but I managed to do it and I'm I was very focused. Being a physician gave me meaning and purpose in life and I really took strength in that. Getting back to see my wife and my family was important. Getting back to seeing patients gave me meaning and purpose and I used those to motivate me to get through the physical therapy and to do what I had to do to get stronger.
Attorney Bob Mannor:I can imagine that that is very important to have a purpose, to have that passion, and, you know, because it must be very difficult to go and have to rebuild your strength twice like that. How long was it between those two events? A little over a year. Oh wow, so pretty close together too. Yes, now you wrote the book after the second diverticulitis. Then you wrote the book after the second, the Diverticulitis. You wrote the book after that, or was it between the two?
Michael J. Hession, MD:No, I actually didn't write the book until January of the pandemic.
Attorney Bob Mannor:Oh, wow, okay, that makes sense.
Michael J. Hession, MD:When I was at the rehab, they had recommended I keep a journal. It was a practice I had started when I was in high school. It wasn't a diary really, just that I had thoughts or impressions. I'd write them down. Sometimes there'd be a sentence, sometimes there'd be a paragraph. I found those journals and I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with them. I was at home with nothing to do and I was watching the television nonstop coverage of the pandemic and the horrors of that. There was one it coverage of the pandemic and the horrors of that. There was one. It was a 60 Minutes editorial of a fellow who was intubated along intubation for ARDS and cytokine storm and made it home and was trying to rebuild his life.
Michael J. Hession, MD:His son was a resident in New York at that time. We just talk of the horror that At that time New York City was the epicenter of the pandemic and I felt like I should be able to do something.
Michael J. Hession, MD:And I realized physically I couldn't do anything. But I could tell my story of what it's like to have ARDS, cytokine storm and to survive and to rebuild your life. So I started to write the book in January. By that summer I had pretty much written most of it. I began working with an editor to make it into a narrative that really people could relate to. I purposely didn't want to make it a very long book. I wanted it to be readable, not a 300 or 400 page thing that no one would be able to get through. So it's only it's a short book, but it's concise.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I think the feedback has been quite extraordinary. I mean I've had people reach out to me. It's been very overwhelming. The response, reviews on Amazon Goodreads have been pretty extraordinary and people have been just coming up to me and just saying you know I really enjoyed your book. I can't tell you how much it meant to me and they would talk about their experiences with their own personal illnesses or loved ones and how it made sense. I think it's having the desired effect. I was recently asked to give a Schwartz rounds at a social hospital in Baymouth, massachusetts. Ken Schwartz was a lawyer in Boston In 1994, he got diagnosed with lung cancer. There was a smoker but he ended up dying in 1995. But he set up this foundation to encourage people to find ways to work with patients and their families compassionately and to improve care, particularly care at the end of life, and they picked my book to highlight this meeting.
Michael J. Hession, MD:It was quite well attended and I think I was surprised at how many people who really came up to me afterwards and sent me notes as to just how powerful they found the book to be and also my recounting of the experience.
Attorney Bob Mannor:And Dr Heshen, in addition to the book, you also have a website. I'm very interested in that. Acknowledgeacceptadaptcom. Tell us about the experience. And, Dr Heshen, in addition to the book, you also have a website. I'm very interested in that. Acknowledgeacceptadaptcom.
Michael J. Hession, MD:Tell us about the website. Well, the acknowledge, accept and adapt were. Over the years of practicing, I realized that I had to have a message to my patients to help them to understand what was going on Because, as you said in your experience, it can be pretty overwhelming and the medical terminology is very arcane. People don't understand it. So I had to find my own way of being able to relate to my patients and discuss what they had, whether it was high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, arrhythmia. So the first step you had to acknowledge what you had. It's not easy to do, people are overwhelmed, and so we would talk about what the condition was and help them acknowledge it and to be able to name it. The second word accept. People would get angry, deny that they had the problem, and I would help them work through the importance of acceptance in recovering from any illness or living with any illness. And the final one was adapt. You had to really figure out a way to move on. Accept that you had the illness, don't get angry about it, waste energy in fighting something that you can't win. But to adapt, as my father said to me many times growing up, son, you have to play the card you dealt with in life to the best of your ability, never quite really fully understood those words until I got older. But it's really the people who can acknowledge, accept and adapt are the ones that do well.
Michael J. Hession, MD:And I saw that, you know, when I was in Spalding Hospital Because I couldn't move, I had Guillain-Barre as a complication of the viral pneumonia. They put me on the spinal cord floor and there was one other patient with Guillain-Barre recovering from a pneumonia, and the rest of the people were paraplegic or quadriplegics, and it was easy to see the patients that were making progress. They were able to acknowledge what they had, accept it, not get angry about it and find a way to move forward. And those are the patients that did well. The patients that floundered couldn't do it. They couldn't acknowledge, adapt together.
Michael J. Hession, MD:And it's, you know, when I was thinking about how I could have a website and help people to really deal with whatever they're experiencing is important. It's important to acknowledge, accept and adapt, and so I use that as the website because it's crucial. Everybody gets something. I mean, no one gets through life without getting something and you never see it coming. For the most part, it never comes at the right time, and one of the books that I read I read a lot, did a lot of reading when I was recovering was a book called the Ice Bucket Challenge.
Michael J. Hession, MD:It was about a young man who went to Boston College as I did a few years later. He was a baseball player and an excellent baseball player. Not good enough to make the pros, but he was a good baseball player and he played semi-pro after he graduated and played in a league for people who loved baseball. At some point in his late 20s he began to have trouble fielding grounders and throwing the ball accurately to get somebody out at base and he went to see a number of different specialists and he was finally diagnosed with Beirut disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Michael J. Hession, MD:It is pretty much a death sentence. There's no treatment for it. There's very little research being done. It is considered an orphan disease because it affects so few people. Considered an orphan disease because it affects so few people. But he was surprisingly energized. He saw that this really gave his life meaning and purpose, that he was going to spend the time he had remaining raising awareness of ALS and fundraising for research, and by the time he died he had raised over $200 million and made ALS much more of a household name and jumped out of the research into this disease and progress is being made.
Michael J. Hession, MD:So you know, he was a guy in his 20s. The prime of his life diagnosis was three, four, maybe five years before you die. You're going to progressively lose all your coordination, use of your arms, your legs. Eventually you can't even speak, you're confined to a wheelchair. Yet he was able to take that diagnosis and find meaning and purpose in his life, acknowledge, accept and adapt, and to really use his life to do something good. And so I think it's possible, very possible, for anybody, no matter what their situation is in life, if they're willing to acknowledge, accept and adapt, to find a way forward, even when a way forward isn't clear. Name was Pete Frades.
Attorney Bob Mannor:Pete Frades, you know that I really like that phrase to acknowledge, accept and adapt.
Attorney Bob Mannor:We have a lot of my clients. One of the things that we focus on is helping families that are someone in their family that have some form of dementia, and that is very much. Those three words are so important when it comes to dementia because people tend to not want to acknowledge this, refuse to accept it, they tend to be in denial about it and, instead of trying to adapt, they just kind of cocoon and don't interact with others or seek out resources. So I think that's a great slogan, a great advice, particularly for those families that are experiencing a level of some form of dementia Acknowledge, accept and adapt and there is still a potential quality of life to be had, both for the caregivers and the one experiencing the dementia, whatever form of dementia they have. So I just really like that. I think that's a very not only positive acknowledgement but also important that families really try to do those three things to advance really quality of life, absolutely.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I think you know I found that over the years in caring for patients I mean pretty much everybody that I saw had significant heart disease, had heart attacks, bypasses, serious arrhythmias, heart failure. It was not a real cure. There were treatments, but the people who did well were the people that could really acknowledge their illness, accept it, not get lost in denial or anger, and then find a way to adapt, to move forward. I saw many people who would come in, be overweight smokers, get religion. They would lose weight, quit smoking, start exercising and really turn their lives around. And I think it's possible.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I think there are very few things we cure. We have treatments, some better than others. Dementia we're seeing more and more of it as people live longer and we're able to control their other medical problems and they're living long enough to get dementia. But I think you're absolutely right, they can get to acknowledge their illness and their family members to acknowledge the illness, accept that it's an illness just like any other illness and adapt. You can enjoy life, do things while you're able to, but at some point in life something gets all of us. You can't give up, you can't get angry. Child doesn't really help at all. And the people that can harness all three of those knowledge, accept and adapt. They're the ones that are going to be happy. Their lives will have meaning and purpose and their families will be at peace with the whole experience.
Attorney Bob Mannor:Dr Michael Heschen. This has been such an important conversation. I very much appreciate and I know our listeners are going to appreciate this Any takeaways, any key takeaways that you want to leave our listeners with.
Michael J. Hession, MD:I think that if you're not feeling well and you know something is not right, don't ignore it. Get seen, don't be afraid to talk about it. I think suffering in silence or trying to tough it out is really not going to help you, and I think that it's the willingness to basically acknowledge that something is not right and to get help is how you will overcome whatever life issue you're going through. It sounds simple, it's not simple and it's not easy it's not simple.
Michael J. Hession, MD:It's great advice, though, but I think if something doesn't feel right, you need to take the time and make the effort to get seen and to be persistent. But I think listening to your body and advocating for yourself and having loved ones advocate for you and also I think as we age, it's important to have advanced directives, have healthcare proxies, because life happens and we all do die and it's unpredictable as to what event's going to cause it or when it's going to happen. But if you take the time to make your wishes known and to see your attorney and have events directives and a living will made out, it'll help your loved ones navigate what can be a very difficult time. Being proactive is very important.
Attorney Bob Mannor:Well, thank you for this great advice. Check out Dr Heshen's book the Physician Healed Myself Nearly Dead and the Journey Back to Health, and also the website acknowledge, accept and adaptcom. I highly recommend checking out both of those. If you enjoyed this podcast and you'd like to know when there's going to be another advice from your advocates, feel free to subscribe at any of the places that you listen to podcasts, or you can go to YouTube or our website at manorlawgroupcom, and you can sign up or register for or subscribe to the podcast. But thanks for listening and we will talk to you next time. Thanks for listening and we will talk to you next time. Thanks for listening. To learn more, visit manorlawgroupcom.
